NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Prosecutors in the Virginia city where a 6-year-old shot his teacher in an elementary school classroom are investigating whether the “actions or omissions” of any school employees could lead to criminal charges, according to court documents released Tuesday.
Howard Gwynn, the commonwealth’s attorney in Newport News, filed a petition for a special grand jury to probe if any “security failures” contributed to the shooting at Richneck Elementary in January that seriously wounded teacher Abby Zwerner.
Gwynn wrote that an investigation could lead to recommendations “in the hopes that such a situation never occurs again.”
Gwynn’s petition was released a day after his office charged the boy’s mother with felony child neglect and a misdemeanor count of endangering a child by reckless storage of a firearm. The child used his mother’s 9mm handgun to shoot Zwerner during class. Police say the weapon was legally purchased.
Last week, Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school system, accusing school officials of gross negligence and of ignoring multiple warnings from teachers and other school employees that the boy was armed and in a “violent mood” on the day of the shooting.
Zwerner also alleges that school officials knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the year before when he “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher.
Police Chief Steve Drew has repeatedly characterized the shooting as “intentional.”
